Free Writing

To get started, let’s loosen up. Let’s unlock the mind. Today, take twenty minutes to free write. And don’t think about what you’ll write. Just write.

I have to say, it’s pretty easy for me to write, because I write like I talk…and I talk a lot. Now I didn’t say that I have that much to say that’s worthy to some people, but never-the-less, I do like to talk and when there isn’t anyone around to talk to, I write. Actually, I talk to myself as well, but what fun is knowing the answer when you’re the one that asked the question in the first place. Yeah, think about that for a moment. But it’s the only way I work out things in my head. I ask questions and work through the answers aloud until I’m where I want to be.
Now, having confessed that, you can imagine I might very well have lots of stories that I’m still working with the plot lines. But not being that concerned with publishing them right away, I just have fun working with the ideas, the characters, etc.
I like to write fiction because I want to see what happens to the characters. Actually my characters have a more interesting life than I do, I think that’s normal. However, they don’t get to see the endings like I do, you know, before it happens. That’s a writer’s perk, I think.

I must confess…my kids say funny things

Have you ever had one of those moments, well, I know every parent has…you know, when your kid does or says something that you think is so ‘out there’ and you look at them and think, “Who are you and where is your mother?” It’s the kind of comment or stunt that makes you look around to make sure the house drones (you don’t really think we’ll have those do you? Oh please…!) didn’t hear them and wonder why their parents hadn’t taught them better?

Well, color me floored! We had been talking about different insurances; auto, home, medical, etc. He recently got bumped off our medical insurance because he’s not a full-time student and hadn’t sent in regular report cards. And, his teenage driving record has come back to bite him, like they always do, right? Well, my son, whom I thought was kind of intelligent said that he didn’t need car insurance, wasn’t going to worry about it and I shouldn’t worry about it for him!

What? The first thing I thought of was…those are fightin’ words mister! I shouldn’t worry about him? How many folks out there, that have children, ever…ever….ever quit worrying about their kids? My mother-in-law tells a story about asking her mother when she stopped worrying about her. Her mother answered seriously, “I don’t know, how old are you?”

Exactly! What the…? When did he…? Didn’t he get the memo? How did I fail? I even worked for a well-known insurance company at the time. Okay, but shouldn’t he have gotten the idea by osmosis or something?

And do you know what’s even scarier that that? Have you ever taken a poll of young people that are twenty somethings about insurance? They all look like the deer in the headlights before he got squished. Have we raised a whole generation that “thinks funny?” Please don’t ask if I’ve been hiding under a rock for the past fourteen years. And, okay…but it was the only quiet place…and that’s beside the point.

But that’s not the only subject for shock fodder. Sometime bring up living single, that one will curl you hair. Oh, go ahead and throw out conspiracy theories and religion or politics, but make sure you’ve taken your blood pressure medicine folks, you’re about to get an education from none other than your own kids.

And to think that I’m helping to raise a four-year-old, pray that I can handle the stress. He is awfully cute!

 

 

Decorating for Easter…

I soooo… wanted to get this together for Easter. There’s not too much time left over during the day for me to decorate the house unless Skyler is in quiet time (which is for an hour in the afternoon and a great time for him to chill and time for me to do…stuff).

Anyway, this is the spring shelf – complete with my newest favorites. The clock is one that my husband, Ken made. It’s pine, painted black and then waxed with Johnson’s paste wax…just a little, but even on painted wood (I’ve done this on painted chairs as well), the wax protects it quite well. We used to use paste wax on our Rosemahled plates years ago. You just have to buff them with an old white sock to bring back the soft look.

The clock is called the Treasure Clock because its door opens and you can store several “treasures” inside. It also holds things I’m trying to hide from Skyler now and again. I’ve painted wild roses on the insert and antiqued it. I found the clock face at a hobby store. I hope to change the inserts (if I can locate the clock faces – its the hunt that makes it exciting) with the seasons. Fun, huh?

I’m a collector of stuffed bears, cats and rabbits. Easter decorations aren’t complete without a bunny in attendance (this one is a TY). The candy holder is a chicken feeder from Big R (farm/ranching store) bedecked with spring stickers. The kids in our family love these – I decorate one for every season and holiday (a case of fruit jars is only about $10 at Walmart – regular mouth jar). Oh, make sure you apply the stickers with the jar upside down, then when you screw it into the holder the design is right side up.

The goose is my favorite of all, I love the colors. Years ago my mother painted it and kept it on her

coffee table. When she had to go in assisted living, she let me take it to my house where it stays in my work room everyday of the year. This year though, its gracing my spring shelf. If anyone is interested I’ll ask her if she remembers what pattern book it was in and share it with you. I think its absolutely beautiful.

Again, thanks for letting me share my craziness with you, I’m loving having this outlet. 

Oh, and the butterfly flower arrangement is from Dollar Tree – aren’t they lovely?

The cutest thing…

Last weekend I found out that our new kitty has two new friends. Miss Kitty (I gave up on Skyler trying to say Patches…it didn’t fit her anyway), made friends with two other little female cats next door. Our neighbors are ex-Air Force and have a rescue for dogs, not large dogs, but some of the cutest small dogs you’ve ever seen. Between their eight, our Chubb-Chub (a Bug…cross between a Boston Terrier and Pug) and with the three on the other side of our property, you can see we are well stocked in canines. Then our son brought home Miss Kitty (aka Ki-Ki). One cat surrounded by twelve dogs? Can you imagine how she felt; kind of like a young woman walking through the downtown construction zone…all the whistles and laughter and cat-calling (pun intended)?

Well, the dogs probably weren’t whistling at her (that would just be weird!), but they were saying something. So she stayed pretty much on the back patio and around the pond area, unfortunately eyeing my Robins that came early last month. Anyway, then we began seeing a black cat running around the neighbor’s property. We laughed with each other about how crazy it seemed that a cat stayed around there with eight dogs!

Sure enough, there’s not only that cat, but she has a twin sister…the cutest thing. And what’s even better, they’ve made friends with our Miss Kitty. Now the ratio of cats to dogs has narrowed down a tad. I’ll try to catch them in a pic to share with you.

Well, it’s Wednesday morning, my morning’s open…what to do, what to do? I bought a ton of flower seeds yesterday (Walmart – 20 cents each!)…Bachelor Buttons, Zinna, Shasta Daisy, Sweet William, Morning Glory-two shades (plant near a fence, right?), Nasturtium, and some Hummingbird Wildflower Mix. I can start them in more seed pots…my painting table is quickly being overtaken by seed pots!

And I still need to start my diy projects in photos. I have a little Olympus FE-280 that’s really old (since I can’t remember when I received it as a gift). Anyway…it’s not holding its charge; need to research a new battery for it I suppose. But it sure is frustrating to get set to take pictures and the camera’s out of power! Ugh!

Of course, I could write some, or paint, or journal. If you’re wondering where the grandson is, I haven’t duct-tapped him to the wall. This is his PBS time…he watches Curious George (he wouldn’t miss a episode of George), the Cat in the Hat (of course), and Peg + Cat…even if you’re not a cartoon officianado of PBS, watch Peg + Cat sometime…the cat is a scream! And, I couldn’t help but notice, the illustrator of this cartoon uses graph paper for background…well, I tried it…it’s so easy to design on graph paper! Everything stays upright and even, wish I had found that for some of my past designs…sometimes they listed to the right or left a little). Hmmm, just when you thought you knew everything, yes?

Off to get started on something…

Spring is here on the high plains of Colorado!

Whoot! So glad my flowers in the raised beds made it through the gale force wind and snow yesterday. Today they’re drinking up that wet wet snow…the pasture bunnies are frustrated not being able to dive in and partake…sorry my friends. We have five rabbits that live under a shed at the south end of the pasture. They come out to visit around 6:00 am and then again around 4:30-5:00 pm. – quite punctual actually.

Skyler and I spent a lot of time planting cherry tomatoes and large table tomatoes in their seed pots this morning…lots of fun and laughter. God bless grandchildren.

They made it!

My early blooms survived the weekend’s snowstorm!

Waiting for the storm…

Do you know what’s worse than Saturday afternoons with nothing to do?…Saturday afternoons without my Jeep and nothing to do. At least I could go to the hobby store and look at the paint and brushes and yarn! Sadly, my husband’s Coyote (1981 Toyota Pickup) is losing its fuel pump, so I’m stuck in the house 30 minutes away from town with my 4-year-old grandson, Skyler, trying to keep him from climbing the walls. And, if that isn’t bad enough? We have another snow storm predicted to hit later this afternoon! More snow!

We just finished raking/aerating the lawn. Isn’t it written somewhere that when you do that Spring immediately begins? Ah come on! I have daffodils opening up, and tulips and the iris are going nuts…

Well….we could ….I know, let’s plant seeds! That’ll keep him busy for awhile. What’s a little dirt?

It’s interesting how a “little” thing like starting this blog causes all sorts of traffic to bounce around in my brain. I usually love snow storms that keep us inside so that I can read and play around with crafts – now I’m thinking about blog designs and coming up with some DIY projects. I really like the idea of a new venue for my painting and decorating ideas – no more craft shows filling up the weekends.

Truthfully, I already have three DIYs and a time in the near future to showcase a small series of seasonal prints that I’m still in love with, that I  painted and designed a couple of years ago.

Also having a good time with a second pair of tube socks that I’m knitting, and excited that I found out how to change the instructions into a smaller size for Skyler. I’m finding that I Love Knitting!

Easter’s next week and I’d like to post a picture of my Spring shelf that I’ve been decorating. I decided since its in the great room, I need to put several things on it this year…less is more isn’t working for me on this project. I already like it a lot!

For my Bible study buddies, I’m working through the Gospel Advocate’s  Christian Woman 8-part series.  I finally finished all of 2013’s series. To those not familiar, every two month issue contains  a new series. This one is “There is Nothing New” from the Jan./Feb. 2014 issue. This magazine has great soup recipes as well.

Well, quiet time is over, so the planting of seeds will begin shortly. Hopefully, next week  I can post pictures so you can see how it went. Until next week…

Let me introduce myself:

Hello, I’m Pam, and as my profile reads, I’m a Christian first, a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter and sister. This is actually my second attempt at a blog. My first one was with another company and everything went well until I retired from my job as an office mgr. and assistant to our minister for our church. Somehow, when things kind of settled down, I found I had misplaced my blog….or they misplaced me.

Anyway, when I retired, my husband retired too (from his job of 40 years). We moved 70 miles away from our home of 28 years into a 3,000 sq. ft. home on three plus acres.  We love it!

Along those lines, we also gained another dependent, our 4th grandchild, Skyler. Skyler is 4-years-old this year, and very active…and curious…and cute as a button. But, he’s 4 and we each just turned 61 – yikes!

I’ve said all that to help introduce my new blog, “Coloring inside the lines…again”. In this blog, I hope to share our journey with some new friends. Please be kind, we need all the positive, helpful hints we can get. It’s a lot scary. We have a new life, a new home to decorate and responsibility for a great little guy. And of course, prayers are always welcome, we couldn’t begin this labor of love without prayers, wouldn’t even attempt it.

This is going to be our second summer actually, but I don’t count last year really, it was just craziness. Now I’m beginning to kind of decorate our house and will need ideas from you all. I intend on taking/posting pictures so you can see what I’m working with. Ideas for working with preschoolers is appreciated. I would love sharing Bible studies with you. I’m a past decorative painter/designer/teacher. I love scrapbooking, project life journaling ideas, art journals, knitting, sewing, gardening, etc.

I know many of you have traveled this road as well and I’d love to hear your thoughts.